


Apocalypse is a state of mind

by scifishipper



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen, Human Weapon, Identity, Post-Serenity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 13:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifishipper/pseuds/scifishipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River doesn't know any other way to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apocalypse is a state of mind

Mal said the Apocalypse came when the Alliance snuffed out the Browncoats and set to running the ‘verse. Zoe, with distance in her eyes, said the Apocalypse came the day Wash died. River, though, she barely remembered anything that wasn’t a hell inside her head. She'd been fourteen when they started her training, fifteen when most of her memories had been taken away. Her brain had been scrambled, cut up and tossed like an egg in a frying pan, burnt around the edges and too hot to touch. 

When she first awoke, the sounds of the ship were deafening, so she shut them out, waking at night where it was only Serenity’s voice that spoke to her. Even Simon’s words were shrill and painful and didn’t make sense in her mind. She recognized him, but thought it strange that he would come to the Academy to see her. And where was Doctor Samuel? 

Eventually she became accustomed to the smell of sick bay, the light tinkle of Kaylee’s laughter, Jayne’s gruff rumble, and Inara’s quiet calm. Simon was the most troubled, though, with worried looks and scurrying behind her, experimenting no different than the rest of them. “To help,” he'd said. “To make you calm.” She couldn’t tell him she wasn’t afraid, that real fear was a memory in the wind. But he said she wasn’t who she used to be and needed protecting. He didn’t know she could protect herself. But then neither did she.

It was the Reavers who showed her who she was, bloody carnage and all. It was second nature, that slaughter of the men who weren’t men, spinning and floating, sensing movement before muscles twitched. In that moment she felt whole, free, at one with who she was meant to be. And for the first time since her memories had been taken away, she was grateful for who she had become.


End file.
